Beans Fight Diabetes:
Beans Seen to Discourage Weight Gain and Diabetes
Part 1
by Craig Weatherby
Courtesy of Vital Choice SeafoodEver since Dr. Atkins took up his cudgel against dietary carbohydrates (sugars and starches), people have tended to perceive this major food group as fattening fare.
To be sure, Atkins was right about the potent glycemic (blood-sugar-raising) effects of sugars and the rapidly absorbed starches in refined flour products like pastries, white bread, and pasta.
But there are important distinctions between starchy foods: ignorance of which leads many to shun high-starch foods that do no harm and can even help control weight and discourage diabetes.
Regular vs. “resistant” starch: the basics
Dietary carbohydrates consist of simple carbohydrates, or sugars, and complex carbohydrates, or starches.
Starches are chains of sugar molecules, whose individual conformations make them distinctly different with regard to digestion, absorption, and blood-sugar control.
Most starches are digested and absorbed into the body in the small intestine.
But some starches resist digestion and pass through to the large intestine where they behave like dietary fibers: the even longer and less digestible chains of sugar molecules from which plants build their physical structures.
Nutrition scientists named these special kinds of carbs "resistant starch."
Legumes (beans, lentils, split peas, string beans) and whole, unprocessed grains contain the highest percentages of resistant starch. See table, below, for the resistant starch content of common beans and grains.)
Resistant starch limits the sharp spikes in insulin and glucose levels that normally follow consumption of foods high in easily digestible starches (sugars, fruit juice, soda, white bread, potatoes, and pastries) … even when the source of resistant starch is consumed many hours beforehand.
Research indicates that resistant starches can really help control people’s weight and reduce their risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes:
Weight Control:
- People who eat resistant starches increase fat-burning (thermogenesis) in their bodies. The authors of an Australian study found that when participants enjoyed a meal in which only 5.4 percent of its starch was the resistant kind, the rate at which their bodies burned (oxidized) body fat increased by 23 percent for a full day afterwards. Adding more resistant starch did not increase the rate of fat burning or its duration. It seems that a little goes a long way in this regard.
- Rodents given resistant starches along with digestible starches maintain smaller fat cells (adipocytes) than companions fed only foods high in digestible starches.
- Diabetes: When present in carbohydrate foods, resistant starch beneficially lowers the “glycemic response” to foods by releasing glucose into the bloodstream at a low, slow, steady rate.
People and animals who consume foods high in resistant starches along with foods high in regular starches maintain higher (i.e., healthier) levels of insulin sensitivity, compared with people and rodents who consume only foods high in regular starches.
- Heart Health: Compared with people who consume only regular, digestible starches, people who also consume foods high in resistant starches enjoy lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
- Cancer: When resistant starch reaches the colon, bacteria feed on it, just as they do on dietary fiber, producing a short-chained fatty acid called butyrate that’s known for its ability to curb the risk of colon cancers.
- Resistant starches: Any repast’s healthful pièce de résistance
Pièce de résistance means the best part, highlight, or feature of something, such as a meal.
Beans, whole grains, and other foods rich in resistant starch meet the definition, as they add a healthful highlight to any a meal. In fact they make the perfect anti-aging complement to colorful, antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables and to oily, omega-3-rich fish such as wild salmon.
The richest food sources of resistant starch--beans, lentils and other legumes--are also high in protein, fiber, and antioxidants.
Beans top the resistance charts
What starchy food satisfies energy and protein needs, delivers anti-inflammatory, antioxidant polyphenols, burns body fat, and moderates blood levels of both blood sugar and insulin?
The answer is “legumes”: that is, beans, lentils, and string beans. Beans contain the highest percentages of resistant starch, followed, at some distance, by whole, unrefined grains.
Prized by traditional cultures--and contemporary fans of ethnic cuisines--beans also serve double-duty as ace weight control allies.
The high levels of resistant starch in beans and whole grains could explain why, in population studies, people who get more of their protein from these complementary plant foods than from meats enjoy healthier body mass indices (height-weight ratios).
A meal featuring legumes raises blood sugar very slowly and moderately, and even moderates the blood-sugar (i.e., glycemic) response to relatively high-glycemic foods (sugars, refined flour products) consumed in the same or next meal you eat.
Aside from resistant starches, beans owe some of their weight-control and anti-diabetes benefits to three other factors:
Fiber: The non-digestible starches we call fiber—in which beans are especially rich—are satiating and stabilize blood sugar: two key factors in weight-control.
Many studies show that higher fiber intake is associated with lower body weight, body fat, and body mass index (weight-to-height ratio). Results from clinical trials are more mixed, although in most cases, higher fiber intake cuts peoples’ food consumption and drops their body weight.
Starch blockers (amylase inhibitors): Beans contain compounds called amylase inhibitors, which block the action of the enzyme (amylase) needed to digest starches. Hypothetically, this effect should help prevent digestion of some of the starch in beans themselves, and of the starch in other foods eaten with beans.
It is not clear exactly how effective the amylase inhibitors in whole beans are compared with taking purified phaseamolin: a supplemental amylase inhibitor extracted from white kidney beans.
Antioxidant pigments: Most of the pigments that color beans are anthocyanins: the same kinds of antioxidant polyphenol pigments that color berries. Anthocyanins help control blood sugar modestly and blunt the inflammatory--hence, pro-diabetic, blood-thickening, and artery-damaging--impact of dietary sugars and standard starches.
Please click here for part 2 of this article.
Editor's note: We consider organic whole foods from both plant and animal kingdoms to be a major key to superior health. We also think it's terribly important to eat fish at least twice a week to get the essential fatty acids. Here at our house, we only eat wild Alaskan salmon and other wild seafoods from our friends at Vital Choice. Click here to visit Vital Choice Seafood.
Sources:
· Bednar GE, Patil AR, Murray SM, Grieshop CM, Merchen NR, Fahey GC Jr. Starch and fiber fractions in selected food and feed ingredients affect their small intestinal digestibility and fermentability and their large bowel fermentability in vitro in a canine model. J Nutr. 2001 Feb;131(2):276-86.
· Boivin M, Flourie B, Rizza RA, et al. Gastrointestinal and metabolic effects of amylase inhibition in diabetics. Gastroenterology 1988;94:387–94.
· Boivin M, Zinsmeister AR, Go VL, DiMagno EP. Effect of a purified amylase inhibitor on carbohydrate metabolism after a mixed meal in healthy humans. Mayo Clin Proc 1987;62:249–55.
· Boivin M, Zinsmeister AR, Go VL, DiMagno EP. Effect of a purified amylase inhibitor on carbohydrate metabolism after a mixed meal in healthy humans. Mayo Clin Proc 1987;62:249–55.
· Bo-Linn GW, Santa Ana CA, Morawski SG, Fordtran JS. Starch blockers—their effect on calorie absorption from a high-starch meal. N Engl J Med 1982;307:1413–6.
· Brugge WR, Rosenfeld MS. Impairment of starch absorption by a potent amylase inhibitor. Am J Gastroenterol 1987;82:718–22.
· Carlson GL, Li BU, Bass P, Olsen WA. A bean alpha-amylase inhibitor formulation (starch blocker) is ineffective in man. Science 1983;219:393–5.
· Englyst HN, Veenstra J, Hudson GJ. Measurement of rapidly available glucose (RAG) in plant foods: a potential in vitro predictor of the glycaemic response. Br J Nutr. 1996 Mar;75(3):327-37.
· Garrow JS, Scott PF, Heels S, et al. A study of 'starch blockers' in man using 13C-enriched starch as a tracer. Hum Nutr Clin Nutr 1983;37:301–5.
· Granfeldt Y, Drews A, Bjorck I. Arepas made from high amylose corn flour produce favorably low glucose and insulin responses in healthy humans. J Nutr. 1995 Mar;125(3):459-65.
· Heijnen ML, Deurenberg P, van Amelsvoort JM, Beynen AC. Replacement of digestible by resistant starch lowers diet-induced thermogenesis in healthy men. Br J Nutr. 1995 Mar;73(3):423-32.
· Higgins JA, Brand Miller JC, Denyer GS. Development of insulin resistance in the rat is dependent on the rate of glucose absorption from the diet. J Nutr. 1996 Mar;126(3):596-602.
· Higgins JA, Brown MA, Storlien LH. Consumption of resistant starch decreases postprandial lipogenesis in white adipose tissue of the rat. Nutr J. 2006 Sep 20;5:25.
· Higgins JA, Higbee DR, Donahoo WT, Brown IL, Bell ML, Bessesen DH. Resistant Starch consumption promotes lipid oxidation. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2004 Oct 6;1(1):8.
· Higgins JA. Resistant starch: metabolic effects and potential health benefits. J AOAC Int. 2004 May-Jun;87(3):761-8. Review.
· Hollenbeck CB, Coulston AM, Quan R, et al. Effects of a commercial starch blocker preparation on carbohydrate digestion and absorption: in vivo and in vitro studies. Am J Clin Nutr 1983;38:498–503.
· Holt PR, Thea D, Yang MY, Kotler DP. Intestinal and metabolic responses to an alpha-glucosidase inhibitor in normal volunteers. Metabolism 1988;37:1163–70.
· Kendall CW, Emam A, Augustin LS, Jenkins DJ. Resistant Starches and health. J AOAC Int. 2004 May-Jun;87(3):769-74. Review.
· Lankisch M, Layer P, Rizza RA, DiMagno EP. Acute postprandial gastrointestinal and metabolic effects of wheat amylase inhibitor (WAI) in normal, obese, and diabetic humans. Pancreas. 1998 Aug;17(2):176-81.
· Robertson MD, Currie JM, Morgan LM, Jewell DP, Frayn KN. Prior short-term consumption of resistant STARch enhances postprandial insulin sensitivity in healthy subjects. Diabetologia. 2003 May;46(5):659-65. Epub 2003 Apr 24.
· Udani J, Hardy M, Madsen DC. Blocking carbohydrate absorption and weight loss: a clinical trial using Phase 2 brand proprietary fractionated white bean extract. Altern Med Rev. 2004 Mar;9(1):63-9.
blog comments powered by Disqus
Disclaimer: Throughout this website, statements are made pertaining to the properties and/or functions of food and/or nutritional products. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and these materials and products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Health & Beyond Online
P.O. Box 755
Earl, NC 28038-0755Contact Us
License, Terms of Use, and Privacy PolicyClick here for Other Chet Day Websites
Health & Beyond Online and Content
Copyright © 1993-2010 by Chet Day
